WORLD AGRICULTURE MINISTERS WORRIED ABOUT FAILURE IN POVERTY ERADICATION

Jakarta, Jan 22 (ANTARA) - Agriculture ministers from many countries were worried about a failure in the world's bid to arrive at a targetted decline in the number of poor populations in mid 2015 as already declared in the 2000 Millennium Declaration.

Agriculture Minister Anton Apriyantono made the remark on the worry here on Thursday when submitting the results of the First Berlin Summit of Agriculture Ministers he had attended in Berlin, Germany, on January 17, 2008.
"Their worry was voiced as a result of high rise in prices of foodstuffs and the world crude oil which had caused a serious impact on food security for poor families," he said.
This condition was also worsened by a predicted population explosion which might increase to 9.2 billion in 2050 from 6.5 billion at present.
Anton further said that principally the world had huge farming lands to provide nine billion people of the world with foodstuffs, but an obvious concept was required for the utility of the potentials of land efficiently and sustainably.
In addition, the distribution of harvested yields and efforts to guarantee that each individual will have access to foodstuffs adequately.
For this purpose, he added, the agriculture minister agreed to five actions, namely increasing agricultural production especially by countries facing food scarcity.
On the occasion, the minister reiterated that one of the most important steps to overcome food crisis which had hit the world was by empowering poor communities to enable them to get access to food and adequate financial support.